Currently, position sensors have been widely applied in various industrial fields, e.g., the field of automotive control. Position sensing devices are already known in the art for sensing a position of a gear shaft.
Specifically, for example, to save fuel, after a gear shaft of a vehicle has been at the neutral gear position for a certain time period (e.g., 5 seconds), the ECU (Electronic Control Unit) will generate a Stop control signal to automatically shut down the engine of the vehicle. Then, when the ECU receives a signal indicating that the vehicle clutch pedal is stepped on, if the gear shaft is still at the neutral gear position, the ECU will generate a Start control signal to automatically start the engine of the vehicle (Automatic Start-Stop Technology). Therefore, the control circuit of the vehicle needs a position sensing apparatus to detect the neutral gear position of the gear shaft.
In addition, for the sake of driving safety, when the vehicle gear shaft moves to the reverse gear position, it is needed to turn on a reverse lamp or activate a voice device to alert surrounding pedestrians that the vehicle is in a reverse driving state. Therefore, the control circuit of the vehicle needs a position sensing apparatus to detect the reverse gear position of the gear shaft.
Traditionally, two position sensing apparatuses are needed to implement detecting of the neutral gear position and the reverse gear position of the gear shaft, which require two sets of magnets and two sets of circuitry elements and mechanical elements, incurring a high manufacturing cost. Moreover, with the two sets of circuitry elements and mechanical elements, there would be higher failure rate.
Therefore, it is necessary to provide an improved position sensing apparatus that may reduce the manufacturing cost and lower the failure rate.